CHRISTMAS DECORATE WITH ME 2026 ~French Inspired~ ¦ Whimsical & Elegant Christmas Decorating Ideas.

Look at this! Well, hello everyone. I am so glad you're here because this is such a special video. It is not just my first Christmas decorating video of 2026. I also think, and this is a bold statement, I think it might just be my biggest, most boldest Christmas decoration installation yet. And if you've seen any prior videos on my channel, you know that's a pretty big statement to make. So I'm excited and a little nervous. We're going to be doing it together, but actually neither of those two things are why this video is so special. This video is special because my mom is here for a week and she is going to be decorating for Christmas with me. Normally I'm always doing it by myself, but this week I have a helper elf and so you might just get to see her in a couple scenes or two. So mom, come on in! Okay so I'm all here. Yeah so as some of y'all already know my mom is very bravely fighting a battle with brain cancer and so that's why you've got this device on you but isn't she pulling it off? I have a great fight team behind me. Yeah and this week it's all about Christmas baby so let's get to it. What do you say? All in the mood can't wait. So welcome to my apartment and specifically Specifically to my entryway and hallway. Now for those of you who have been following my channel, you know that I actually made over this entryway a little over a year ago. I DIY'd this cabinet to open sideways from the stairs and the shoe storage bench to make the space much more functional, and I totally love how it turned out. However, I've always felt like this entryway has been missing this wow. First impression. It's narrow. When you walk in, you immediately have to walk up these gray stairs and then navigate this narrow hallway on the second floor before the apartment opens up to the living room or kitchen or wherever. So I thought, this Christmas, why not go for it and see if I can create a magical, show-stopping first impression in my entryway. On top of this, I also wanted to make sure the entryway properly introduced my theme for this year, which speaking of, my theme for this year is a French fairy tale Christmas. I got this idea because I've always wanted to do the classic French country theme, but you know me, I like being a bit fancy and I've got to put my twist on things. Instead of going French country, I decided I want to go a little bit more French provincial, which means instead of having all those rustic touches, I want to decorate with more ornate antiques and gold filigree. However, I still want to keep that classic light dusty blue color, which is so quintessentially French. And the twist? I thought, why not add a sense of whimsy and magic with this fairy tale element? So think a secret garden, think twirling around in a dress in an enchanted forest, think fairy godmother who conveniently also happens to have a chateau north of Paris. But what I hope to achieve at the end of the day is to inspire a general feeling of wonder and excitement to explore upstairs, in the sense that this entryway is a sort of portal to a magical French fairyland. Okay, so I know we just started down in the entryway, but I actually think the best place for us to start is this wall, because I saw on Pinterest a 2D tree on a wall, and I just thought it was stunning. I was like... So I'm actually thinking we're gonna divide and conquer. You're gonna start with the tree and I'm gonna start on the ceiling. But let me show them this first. Oh and this is the funny part. Wait I just put it on a hanger. So that's how we're gonna hang it. So then the idea is that this hangs on a wall and then we will put all bunch of picks and sprays to make it look like a Christmas tree and maybe even a couple of ornaments And so I think you can go ahead and start. I can't wait. Let's do it. Let's bring it on. Okay, so some of this is my flock stuff, so I think that's the ending note. But I have all of my olive branches. Oh, yeah. So I think those could be pretty. Yeah. And then at the bottom, these I used two years ago, and I think these I really envisioned in there. Yeah. Are my blueberry ferns. And then down here going up. And I think then this... Oh, you can bend it down. Oh yeah honey. I've never made a tree like this before but I'm very excited about the process. Well neither have I. That's true. Uh no what do I dub you? I dub you Queen, the 2D Christmas tree squeezed with this olive branch. Excellent maybe I should wear it on my head. Like I'm the winner of the job. Kind of like an athlete. Delete? When my mom got to work on the wall tree, I began preparing for what I wanted to do on the ceiling. command hooks on hand that I was prepared to use for support as well, but my main secret to this installation were these white tension rods that would secure everything while being renter-friendly. It is now the next day. I ended up not filming any more of what I did up on the ceiling because it was a bit of a tedious process, but I'm ready to show you what I did. So here's these sticks that mom and I got from outside. I always love using real sticks because first they're free. Second, they're much stronger than any kind of the flimsy wire that you can buy in a store. And three, they just look so much more realistic than anything else you can buy. So I just think it's just a win-win-win all around. As you can see, I've got one down there kind of leading into the kitchen, one in the middle of the hallway, and then one down here. Oh, and I also put one Up here so that when you come from the entryway and you walk up the stairs, you get this magical foresty view. Now, hopefully you can see, but I attach these with this really thin. silver floral wire and then that combined with these white tension rods Um, it. is what is holding these sticks in place and then this one i've currently got glued up there which is why i have this taped but we'll we'll eventually take that down but yeah i think this one also is just looking amazing we couldn't have found a better stick if we even tried so magical okay So the other one looks a little better down the bottom. Well, you know what? They're twisted. Do you want me to hold part and you look at it? Sure. Um, that's not going to be it. Okay, even though I didn't film putting these sticks up, I did film my mom and I starting to make the shape of the garland downstairs so that we can kind of get an idea of where we're going. I always think creating the shape of the garland is the most important part for setting the tone of the garland and the style of it, and for my theme this year, which is French fairy tale, I wanted to make sure that the garland just looked effortlessly draped, kind of just like It plopped there, and it turned out to be so elegant and beautiful, and I think we're well on our way. Now, I can also say when we attached this, I attached this with pipe cleaners, white ones. I find having pipe cleaners super, super handy for attaching garlands to staircase banisters. Do you want to test the coat? Works great. It's going to work. I feel comfortable with the closet. How was it? The camera likes that Well, I'm in trouble again. And then it was time to take down the existing art in the entryway because I had a special plan for this area. Earlier this year, I thrifted this mirror with this beautiful gold frame that I thought would be just perfect for the Parisian vibe I'm going for, and for the art that I picked out. However, in classic DIY fashion, I didn't want the art to look like what it was, which is just an image printed out on a poster board. I wanted it to look like an original painting, if I could. So, I called in my mom to paint over the entire thing with Mod Podge to make it look a little more More authentic. You've got to be kidding me. So that must have been Neil Butcher. That's insane. I thought I was just buying a mirror. I didn't think I was also buying a summer piece of art. Can you say that again on camera? Okay, Houston, we might have a problem. Let me turn you around because look at this. Okay, so first of all, it's looking fabulous. Like the concept of it, the fairytale, amazing. They look green. The lights look green. Guys, I bought like warm white icicle lights. Thinking, well, you want warm white and what could go wrong? Clearly, something, and we still can't quite figure out how they went from looking warm white yellow when they were on the ground to all of a sudden when the sun goes down, they look, we don't want that. So I think we're going to go do some things downstairs on the entryway. We're going to sleep on this and maybe come back. See how it looks in the morning? Maybe we redo. I just don't know. But clearly, sickly green lights on my entryway. I want a magical white bright forest. We're going behind the scenes. Yes, you were on my blanket. Take it off to the trash. Don't worry, I'll shake it out. In the end, I ended up getting new incandescent icicle lights because incandescent lights will never lead you astray with this sort of thing. But anyways, while my mom and I, yes, spent the time to restring all the lights, we were also able to make two notable changes in the entryway. The first was changing out these orange lampshades with these neutral ones, which I absolutely love and I think are perfect for the French vibe. And the second was finally hanging the painting. And I feel like as soon as we hung this up, I felt like my vision was coming together. So, a couple of updates. First, my mom left. She had to go, but the good news is she's getting great treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and there's a chance that she can come back in December, so let's hope for that. That would be good. Yes, this does mean I am now by myself finishing off this makeover, and my goodness, I am so glad my mom was here because there were things I could not have done without her, thinking critically of that big stick up in the hallway. But regardless of whether I need her here or not, I am going to be by myself during the rest of it. So where does that leave us for now? Well, the first update I have to share with you is that I have added lights to both the garlands. Ta-da! Don't they look amazing? So I added fairy lights to this one and I added cluster lights to this one. You might have seen that earlier on I actually added fairy lights but I realized I didn't like it because it made the shape of the garland look much too rectangular and square and I just love how these cluster lights really help add that flowy whimsical shape. But you can also see I've made a couple other additions as well. The first one, I was actually saving this, you guys, for the kitchen. Part of my decorating philosophy is if you put it there and it just looks right and it stings, you got to roll with it and you got to do it. So this is not in the kitchen. This is in the entryway. But I have a couple more, so we'll be okay. This is this like cutest little faux gold pear garland. Okay, the other thing on this side of the wall. I added these three little picture frames. Actually when I first moved in I always wanted to do a big piece of art with these exact three little pieces off to the side just like this. Uh, never did it, clearly. Anyway, that's a side note. And I also began to add the structural support for the greenery up in this garland, which is good because that's the hardest part of any garland or any swag is always the structural part of it. And so now I think I can zhuzh it up a bit. And I was looking at the things that I already have and just like I stole things from the I'm stealing this from my Christmas tree which is actually A bad idea, I do not endorse, but as of this moment, I haven't decorated my Christmas tree yet, so a little bit of a sneak peek. This has got to be hands down the most realistic and affordable eucalyptus picks, and I love that they're seeded. Oh, just gorgeous. And then my blueberries to tie in the blue color. Okay, and obviously this isn't official, but like if we're to just kind of like, I don't know. Stick these in there. Obviously, that's not officially placed, but I'm totally gonna fall. Thought you were gonna fall. Whatever. But even this is not all of what I have to do because we still have this console table to decorate. Now, as you probably already saw, I thrifted this candelabra. And what I realized, first off, Not just that this would be the perfect place for it, but I also realized with my theme, a French fairy tale, I feel like one of the great overlaps between those two ideas is candles. So we're doing all the candles. Can we see the vision? Are you as excited as I am? I really hope you're as excited as I am. This makes me so happy. I did end up adding a few extra things in the entryway, which you'll see at the end of this video, but for now I went upstairs to finish working on the ceiling branches. Because I had to change the lights out for incandescent ones which had thicker white wires, I wanted to make sure to add color back so they didn't look so snowy and winter wonderlandy. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but since I'm using green greenery this year, I definitely wanted to make sure I added greenery into these to make them fit with the rest of my decor. I actually started off by adding these leaf picks, which By the way, I will do my best to put links for everything down in the description box below, however, I'm intentionally not going to link these leaves because they come from a rather unusual place, which I do talk about in my Christmas living room makeover, so sorry about the wait, but things will come clear in due time. Alright, folks! Look what I've done. Okay, so these are finished and the one in the entryway is also finished, which is thrilling. I feel like this makeover, well, it has taken a long time. I don't feel like that. That is true. But I feel like this makeover has been so scrambled, like do a little down here, do a little up here, do... Anyways, so I'm thrilled to say that, you know, I figured out how I want to decorate these. All I need to do now is decorate the one above your head. And decorate the tree. Yes, the tree, way back at the beginning of this video that my mom helped me make. Ta-da! Here she is. I apologize, it's a little cut off. Actually, I'm probably cutting it off. Let me come up here. This hallway is simply miserable to film in because it's so narrow, but anyways I digress. Look, it's here. You can see I actually put this star from my Christmas tree up on this tree, but that is not for now. Right now I want to finish this ceiling thing. Now to finish off these ceiling treatments, I first added some of my iced branches and pinecone picks. I wasn't originally sure if I even wanted to put these in, but I think they certainly helped add that magical fairytale vibe, and so I went with it. Next I added these crystal garlands. These aren't necessarily strictly Christmas decor, I consider them more of a craft item, but the way that they reflect light and add that drapey effect is just so gorgeous and perfect, I think, for Christmas. Then I added these individual chandelier crystals and a few other ornaments here and there which you might recognize from my tree last year. And at the last minute I also ended up adding some of my mini gold ornaments and mini blue bows which I didn't film but you will see at the end. And then of course I got to decorate this wall tree which was actually really fun. I added in some of those blueberry fern picks except I decided only the ones without the pine cones for some reason. And then some of these flower pearl ribbon things I made and some sparkly touches of course to tie everything together. Okay are y'all ready to see this? I cannot wait to show you. Okay I want you to pretend like you haven't seen this video and you have no idea what's coming and I'm welcoming you in for the first time. Okay come on in. Here's what happened. I was on FaceTime one night with mom and I was laying like this and we realized you can turn your feet if you lay just right into elf ears. I don't mind. Okay, you got to scoot up closer. This is going to take a little bit of a result. Can you have sad elf? Can you have happy elf? Okay, there I go. Okay. That's good right there. Okay. Do you want to know? Do you know what I first learned in school? No. What did you learn in school? The alphabet. Okay, what should we tell them? We should say, happy holidays, happy holidays. Happy holidays. We say, and happy decorate, Merry Christmas, enjoy decorating, like and subscribe. Yes. Okay, ready, here we go. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas. Like and subscribe. Okay, but we gotta move our feet while we do it. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas. Happy decorating. Oh have so much fun. And like and subscribe. I love being elf employed. Yes we've had the most magical week. Keep my ears. Oh yeah we can't. Oh my ears. So good. Oh that's what we say. Treat every day like Christmas. Like and subscribe. That was good at the end.